Tribune Closes $170 Mil Cash Deal to Acquire Sony’s Gracenote

Tribune Co. announced it has completed the acquisition of Gracenote from Sony Corp. of America for $170 million in cash, a deal that fortifies Tribune’s entertainment-metadata biz.

Gracenote will continue to operate from its headquarters in Emeryville, Calif. The deal combines Gracenote, which provides data about music, TV shows and movies, with the Tribune Media Services division, which provides entertainment metadata including TV listings. For Gracenote, Tribune’s TV networks and stations will offer platforms to bring its smart-TV, music and advertising products to market, the company said.

“With the addition of Gracenote, we will expand our metadata capabilities by extending the business into new areas of music and automotive,” Tribune prexy and CEO Peter Liguori said in a statement.

Gracenote provides music and video content and technologies to entertainment products and brands worldwide. Its music and video database covers more than 180 million songs and listing for some 1 million TV shows and movies for 30 countries, reaching more than 1 billion smartphones and tablets, according to the company.

Last July, Tribune announced plans to spin off its newspaper business, including the namesake Chicago Tribune and the L.A. Times, into a separate company. Meanwhile, Tribune last year completed a $2.7 billion deal to acquire 19 stations in 16 markets from Local TV Holdings to nearly double its broadcast television footprint.